“What’s going to happen to him now? When he’s fit for service? ”
“He’ll be an instructor at the Special Warfare Center at Bragg.”
“Teaching what?” The President chuckled. “How to run around in a leopard skin in the jungles of Africa and stay alive?”
“Yes, sir. That sort of thing.”
“I thought I was making a joke. You’re implying we’re going to continue to be involved in the Congo.”
“In sub-Saharan Africa, yes, sir, I’m afraid we will be.”
“But the Simbas are finished,” the President argued, and then asked, almost menacingly, “Aren’t they?”
“I think it’s safe to say that Olenga is finished, Mr. President. But I think there will be others like him, and the next time, the Soviets will be prepared to help them.”
“Why didn’t they do more for Olenga?”
“I think they were as surprised by Olenga as we were, Mr. President. He really came out of nowhere—”
“That’s not the answer I was looking for, Felter,” the President interrupted.
“Sir?”
“The Russians knew I wouldn’t stand for anything like that,” the President said. “That’s why they didn’t supply him with arms.”
Felter said nothing.
“Goddamn you, Felter,” the President said after a long moment, “you can say more with your mouth closed and that dumb look on your face than most members of Congress can say in a two-hour speech.”
Felter said nothing.
“Felter, you’re paid to tell me what you think, not what you think I want to hear.”
Felter looked at him.
“Mr. President, before Dragon Rouge, there were four Soviet transports flying weapons from Algeria into Uganda—”
“According to the CIA, there were reports of one or two airplanes, which may or may not be Soviet aircraft which may have carried weapons. . . .”
Felter almost visibly chose his words carefully before replying:
“Mr. President, the CIA is constrained by their obligation to give you facts. I believe you wish me to tell you what I think.”
“What do you think, Colonel?” the President snapped sarcastically.
“I believe that at the time Dragon Rouge occurred, at least two—and most probably four—Ilyushin-18s, which is a turboprop transport much like our C-130s, were engaged in transporting arms from Algeria to the Arau air base in northern Uganda. The aircraft were black—”
“A figure of speech?” the President interrupted. “Or really black?”
“They were painted black, Mr. President,” Felter said. “To make them black, if you follow my meaning.”
“In other words, you’ve seen them? You know they were painted black?”
“I didn’t see them personally, but I trust my source.”
“Which is?”
“With all respect, Mr. President, I’d rather not say.”
“You are aware that the President is the ultimate authority on need-to-know? I decide who needs to know, not you.”
“I would prefer that the CIA didn’t learn of my source, Mr. President.”
“You and the CIA are supposed to be on the same side, something you don’t always remember,” the President said. “Let me spell it out for you, Colonel. You will tell me, and I will decide whether or not I’ll tell the CIA. Got it?”
“Yes, sir. The West Germans have an agent in the East German Embassy in Algeria. His intelligence was passed on to me.”
“Why shouldn’t I tell the CIA that?”
“Because the CIA would pressure the Germans to use him, sir.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“If that happened, in this case, sir, I think it would shut off my flow of information from Bonn.”
“Okay. That will go no further.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“In the sure and certain knowledge that what you will tell me will not be what I would hear if I asked the CIA, Felter, what—or who—is going to cause me the most trouble in the immediate future in Africa?”
“Che Guevara, Mr. President.”
“Guevara?” the President parroted incredulously. “Castro’s guy? The one who can’t grow a decent beard?”
“Yesterday, Mr. President, he was in New York. He addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations.”
“Nobody paid any attention to him,” the President said disparagingly. “They call that ‘tweaking the tail of the lion.’ It goes back to the days when there really was a British Empire. He got a lot of applause, not because of what he said, but because the people clapping—the ambassadors from ‘countries’ the size of Rhode Island—knew it would piss us off.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure that’s true. Tomorrow, he’s going to be on CBS’s Face The Nation.”
“So what? More of the same.”
“He has a certain stature, sir. His coming here—to the United States, and the UN—will increase it. If he can cause trouble for us in Africa, it will increase his stature in South America, and make it easier for him to cause us trouble